iPad Review: McGyro

If you’re aiming to be the best and most feared sharpshooter in the West, then all you need to do is become Sheriff McGyro in McGyro.

In this game, your objective is to shoot down all your enemies (well, think wooden target cutouts) without dying. Of course, with your skills and all, there’s no chance at dying! Not really, actually. There are 5 levels, each with three different stages in which you must complete before you even hope to obtain the next level.

Gameplay is a little tricky, especially given that it’s on a tablet. You could be on horseback and must aim at the targets that appear on the train. Or you could be on a moving train and must take down the targets who show up on horseback. Better yet, you could be in a train wagon and shoot your enemies in front of you.

I found this game to be frustrating, to say the least. I will be frank: it was not worth the $0.99 that I paid to play the game. There are two ways to shift your focus and aim in the game. One is to tilt the iPad to move (and this gave me a headache because I would move this closer and closer to me before I realized how close it was to my face). The other way is to move in the direction you want with your left hand. Believe me, both methods are terrible.

You shoot your targets by tapping the screen after you have locked onto a target. The shooting part is actually quite simple: aim, then tap the screen to shoot. Nothing really hard about it. Of course, if you shoot the head, you get more points, but that should only be done if you don’t really have that many enemies nearby. Otherwise, just shooting them wherever will get the trick done.

Like I mentioned above, “moving” around to aim was a nightmare. The movement part is sensitive and with your targets moving, trying to aim quickly and accurately is easier said than done. On my part, it took me forever to just aim and I wasn’t even going for the head. I was just trying to hit my targets, but no. The game didn’t want me to achieve just that.

There is a tutorial, but it’s not a great tutorial - it just teaches you the basics. There are tips between every stage, but sometimes, those tips come too late. For example, I realized that I was losing health because I kept getting hit by the enemy (hatchets and knives and all), but I had absolutely no clue as to how to dodge them. I couldn’t move my guy at all and it was by sheer chance and accident that I discovered that I could shoot the flying object coming towards me and get some nice points. Ironically, the tip for that came on the next stage. Why, thanks, but no thanks. In addition, you can shoot the bottles on the ground (there are some health potions) but again, no mention of this until later in the game. Couldn’t you give us some tips before we actually started the game?

I don’t highly recommend this game for reasons mentioned above. Maneuvering is a headache, not getting tips in time also provides for some frustration. As long as the game doesn’t make the necessary adjustments and all, this is one game that is not staying on my iPad. Sorry, McGyro. Your graphics may be good but graphics are only half of the game.

Interested in wanting to know more or to purchase the game? Click here.